Is Ohio's felony murder statute, and Petitioner's conviction and 15-years-to-life sentence thereunder, unconstitutional in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments because Ohio refuses to adopt the merger doctrine, which most states employ to avoid the felony-murder rule's harshest applications, and it further treats felony murder as a strict liability offense because the doctrine of imputed intent no longer applies to enable jury consideration of the lesser offense of reckless homicide?

QUESTION PRESENTED Under the common law felony-murder rule, if a person kills another while committing or attempting to commit a felony, the killing is murder. The rule has become increasingly controversial because it treats and, therefore, punishes, conduct that is unintentional or reckless as if it were intended or planned. But intent is a hallmark of the criminal law. Most states have guardrails that can prevent the most egregious outcomes from the rule’s blind application. One of those is the merger doctrine. It bars felony murder when the predicate assaultive felony—as in this case—is the alleged cause of the subject death. Although many jurisdictions have adopted the merger doctrine, Ohio has not. But Ohio did recognize the idea of imputed intent. That meant that where “knowledge” is the mental state for the underlying felony, that same mens rea is imputed to also be the mens rea for the alleged homicide; the imputation doctrine was applied in Ohio to enable jury consideration of whether the homicide was, instead, committed with lesser culpability such as recklessness. But that changed with this case. In the instant matter, the jury concluded that Petitioner acted recklessly in causing the victim’s death, rejecting purposeful murder, but it sti// convicted of felony murder because the reckless-homicide instruction was not given on that count. The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. In so doing, that Court explicitly read any mens rea requirement out of the felony murder statute, held that the offense is one of strict liability as to the victim’s death, and rejected further use of imputed intent as the means to enable jury consideration of lesser offenses. Petitioner’s case presents the following question: Is Ohio’s felony murder statute, and Petitioner’s conviction and 15-years-to-life sentence thereunder, unconstitutional in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments because Ohio refuses to adopt the merger doctrine, which most states employ to avoid the felony-murder rule’s harshest applications, and it further treats felony murder as a strict liability offense because the doctrine of imputed intent no longer applies to enable jury consideration of the lesser offense of reckless homicide? i